A critical review on recent advancements in metal–organic frameworks for CO2 capture, storage and utilization

One of the biggest problems our world is currently facing is climate change caused by rising atmospheric CO₂ levels. The creation of technology that encourages “negative carbon emissions” is necessary to address this worldwide catastrophe. As the shift to more sustainable energy infrastructures advances, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies are essential for removing CO₂ from current emission sources, such as industrial and energy production facilities. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of solid porous materials that have attracted considerable interest recently in addition to conventional inorganic adsorbents. MOFs as adsorbents are a rapidly expanding subject owing to their versatility in structure and function. Innovation in carbon capture solutions is continuously driven by the promising performance of MOF-based technology. An ever-increasing number of current publications and citations, as well as the ongoing expansion of the study scope and researcher interaction, demands a summary of the approaches based on MOFs developed to date. In this review, first, insights into MOFs have been provided, followed by the synthesis of MOFs using methods ranging from conventional (e.g., solvothermal/hydrothermal) to contemporary (microwave-assisted, mechanochemical, electrochemical, microemulsion, sonochemical, and dry-gel conversion methods) and other methods (e.g., green synthesis, ionic-liquid-based and discarded materials as a synthesis medium). Later, characterization techniques (e.g., XRD, FTIR, TGA, and BET) are briefly discussed. Thereafter, the applications of MOFs for CO₂ capture (mainly focused on MOFs for post-combustion CO₂ capture and direct air capture), CO₂ storage and CO₂ conversion (e.g., MOFs as photocatalysts and MOFs as electrocatalysts) are mentioned. Furthermore, commercialization, scalability and environmental impact of MOFs are summarized. Finally, some suggestions for the future development of MOFs are outlined, and we hope that the valuable insights provided in this review will be helpful in future research.